My Stranger

I lived a version of Belle Burden’s story – not as a wife, but as a child; with a lot less money and a lot less of my father around. I might have been the lucky one.

When The New Yorker broke the news that bestselling author Belle Burden had been less than forthcoming about her finances in her Oprah-anointed memoir, Strangers; that she has, or will have, many more millions of dollars than she let her readers know about in her story of marital abandonment, and a husband who left her without saying why, I thought, here we go again.

I have core memories of watching Oprah Winfrey turn on James Frey back in 2006, after parts of his memoir, A Million Little Pieces, were revealed to be inventions. I can picture poor James, squirming in the hot seat, babbling about authorial intent and how he exaggerated details like length of his jail stay (a few hours, not eighty-seven days) because he was trying to get at some emotional truth – the shape of addiction, the idea of suffering -- and Oprah cutting him off, saying, “That’s a lie. It’s not an idea, James. That’s a lie.”

I figured people would have the same response to the news about Belle Burden. Even though it’s not apples to apples – Frey invented, Burden omitted – I thought Strangers readers would feel the same kind of anger and betrayal.

I was wrong.

Readers are, indeed, feeling angry and betrayed.

However, they are not angry at Belle Burden, for betraying them. Instead, they are angry at the New Yorker, for exposing her. It’s not about the money, they say. It’s about the way her ex left her; the implication that he considered the money and connections she brought to the marriage; the work she did running their households, raising their children, to have a value of zero dollars.

I can see their point. But, even before the financial news broke, I’d been struggling with the book, and a sense that what Burden was telling readers was different than what she was showing us.

Some of that had to do with money. More of it was personal. Because I lived a version of the story of Strangers…not as a wife, but as a child.